Come Around Again
by Zagzagel
Summary: When Sam overcomes Lucifer and stands on the precipice of hell, Dean thinks they've won. Michael, however, has other ideas.
1. Chapter 1

**...**

* * *

"It's okay, Dean. It's gonna be okay."

Everything was blending into a ringing tin sound in his head, body jolted as he slid down Baby to the eventuality of the ground. The world was a bright smear of colors, mainly red, the pain echoing just outside of full on. Sam was away from him, his brother panting, and it clicked in his haze that Lucifer was fighting. Trying for control, but that whole looming about to fall unconscious thing was swimming in him, making everything blur out of focus again.

"I've got him."

He wanted to tell Lucifer his little mind screw was old when he did it back in Detroit. That was until Sam's face snapped back into view a bit cleaner. Words pushed at his mouth, his brother's name, and he saw the absolute terror on Sam's face, his brother digging the rings out of his pocket.

He wanted to say something, anything, but words had as much staying power as a whiskey dream. A snap, the earth exploding, and he put his less injured arm up out of reflex. That smell, it was all around them. Hell had come to earth, the sensation of its screams, the pain it radiated up, as the ground crumbled away from where the rings had once been.

Sam was staring at him, breathing so hard with fear that he wished he could say yes, and throw himself into the pit instead.

"Sam! Step back!"

Dean felt his head roll to the side like a disconnected bobble as he tried to see. Michael, the bastard who had stolen Adam, and did God knows what to get him to say yes. Castiel had been right, only a few minutes, and it had to be long enough. This was all they had left.

"You're going to have to make me!"

There was movement near him, but he was watching Sam, his world swimming sideways and diagonally, but he couldn't look away. Sam was standing there and everything in him screamed both for Sam to jump and to run. Anything, as long as this fight didn't go down on their watch, the world not burning, and he managed to bring his vision back from almost blackout.

Sam was flung back, falling into the screaming bowels of hell, as the ground reformed itself once again. But he knew Michael was still there, could see the bastard's shadow slanting across the dying grass that he was copiously bleeding onto. Blood choked him as he tried to speak, tried to say anything, as those rings flew through the air towards them.

"Foolish child," Michael was saying, crouching down in front of him. "Did you not think I wouldn't have the owner's manual to something I was commanded to build?"

He tried to force out a sound but it felt like his mouth was swollen closed, the iron taste on his tongue nauseating, as he struggled to move with what felt like a million broken bones. Michael was turning the rings so they caught the light, a thousand little sparks of how he failed again.

"You and I, Dean, are going to spend some quality time together."

He pushed back against Baby, trying to get away from those fingers coming towards his head, as the world blanked out.

 **...**

* * *

His face had ceased to feel like a fiery mess of a thousand knives stuck through his cheeks, so that was one thing. Sunlight glared down and he moaned, closing his eyes, feeling the soft give of well-tended grass beneath him. That fresh smell was constant, yet not quite real around him, as he tried to remember how he ended up sprawled out on the ground.

Then his mind caught up with him and he was up on his feet, rubbing the sting of the light away.

"What the holy hell?" he asked precisely no one as his eyes, which were almost functional, took it all in.

Apparently he had been passed out on some lawn like a drunken frat boy in front of a yellow house complete with flower beds full of tulips. Some weird array of colors, everything far too bright and pristine to be true, surrounded him. That wasn't the weird part. No waking up here wasn't the worst that could have happened.

At what, he assumed, was fifty feet out on all sides of this was endless fog. It swirled up against some kind of barrier, a lazy circle around his new property, with a thin frame of sky arching blue above him.

"No, no, no," he muttered. "Not like this, it wasn't supposed to be like this."

There was no answer. No figure appeared to mock him or even provide a reasonable explanation for why the Twilight Zone had collided with Better Homes and Gardens. This could be in his mind, or just somewhere out in the ether. All he knew was that he hadn't said the magic word, hadn't allowed one of those dickheads in, but this wasn't much better. Legs, as steady as wet sand, moved him towards the nearest part that was filled with fog, and somehow he was not surprised to find it solid.

Which should probably say a lot to how fucked up his world was when this was expected.

Carefully, he started feeling as high up as he could go, then as low, and found no give. There was no sign that this was actual mist he could stick his fist into. As he made his way around, he tried to get his mind to quit imaging terrors lurking there, unseen. Things that might be waiting to body slam the wall unless, of course, they could pass through it. That wouldn't surprise him because that's how his luck went. Trapped in Leave it to Beaver land with people eaters sniffing and waiting their turn. Like a polite line where he couldn't see them until the light turned green.

His weapon was still with him and he pulled it free, checking the clip. Fully loaded with one in the chamber, but how much good it would do was far from sure. He didn't even know what he was up against here.

As he made his way around the yard to the back of house, he saw that the porch door was open, and he scuffed the earth in a cross shape to mark the spot. Then, he crept up the stairs, the wood not even giving a creak under his weight. Gun drawn, he entered what looked like a kitchen. Something designed to be modern, complete with extra weapons housed in a butcher's block by the door. He took several, finding a place to hold them on his person, before going back outside. He was not exploring this house.

Yet he realized he might have to when he got back to where he started with the fog. No way out, no holes, just a solid piece underneath his hands like glass that never reflected light. That piece of blue sky still visible above him, almost like an ocean had been painted on the ceiling of his new little home.

"What the hell do you want?"

Nothing answered.

 **...**

* * *

The house wasn't any less of a creep fest than outside, but after a nerve racking hour of searching all the nooks, crannies, and under bed areas, along with checking compulsively outside for any changes, he felt he was reasonably safe. At least as safe he could be given the conditions. Dean had zero idealistic notions that stuff wouldn't soon come to eat him, or attack him, or whatever the point of this exercise in strangeness was. Just that, for right now, he thought he could sit on a kitchen chair and not have it grow teeth.

 _Don't give this place ideas,_ he thought, not sure how cracked his head was getting. Or if this wasn't just a death dream, and he was really dying in that godforsaken cemetery while an archangel looked coldly on.

There was food present, the fridge had all the things he normally liked, and he couldn't help but think back to that hell hole dear old Zach had kept him in. The one stocked with beers and burgers and unnerving temptations of TV women. At least Michael didn't placate him like that. He went for the unsettlingly 'you are mine' right off the bat.

Dean felt he could maybe appreciate that direction. It at least had a sense of truth to it.

As much as he wanted to get wasted right now, he knew that would help exactly zero people. For all he knew, Michael had already bopped on back and started the grand apocalypse, decimating the world. All for a Dad that wasn't coming back and didn't give a damn.

An animalistic sound ripped clean through him as he kicked the side of the fridge at its nerve to hum, the one present sound in this dead world.

The thought of Sammy in hell with Lucifer gloating over him, Michael holding up the rings, and he was punching the fridge, until he realized there were red streaks. His, as his fingers began the slow ache, finally catching up with his brain. Two of them were misshapen, skin torn slightly open with blood dripping to the floor.

He relished the pain. He could deal with at least this, this was real.

 **...**

* * *

The beer was useful for him to hold his splinted fingers against as there seemed to be a supreme lack of a freezer, or anything outside of chilled. Not that he expected an angel to get things like ice cream, or just some damn ice in general. He was probably lucky there was food and that it was passable instead of being some nightmarish concoction.

Not that he was eating anything. There was a growing strain of hysteria in his mind over whether, or not anything was safe to eat, or if it was laced with something terrible. Some thought of him vomiting out his guts in the tulips made him smile a little. Those things were so damn cheerful, they needed to be taken down a notch.

Instead, he sat on the back porch not wanting to be inside where he felt more confined. Having places to run to, well that wasn't a thing, but he didn't want to be immediately stuck in a corner like a little bitch. If the mists monsters were coming, he wanted to see them up close and personal, empty a few rounds, take out some throats.

As he nodded in and out, feeling exhausted and unable to form a plan, he wondered if he would ever see anyone again.

It turned out that it wasn't mist monsters at all that came. Instead it was a pompous archangel and he knew who it was even if he didn't look like Adam right at this moment. The sharp glint, the way Michael looked him over like he was making measurements for a new home, the same way he had when he had taken dad over for a few minutes. Just long enough to fuck with their lives, and he wondered if that's why mom hadn't had put wards up all those years ago. That she hadn't been able to remember her deal at all.

With the angel still staring at him, he realized he had been banking heavily on the mist monsters over this.

"What the hell did you do with Adam?"

"You have injured yourself," Michael said, completely avoiding the question, as he came closer. Dean hissed, drawing his hand to his chest.

"If I want your help I'd ask for, Sunshine. Which means hell will die before those words show up."

"As you wish." The archangel stopped, head tilted, and Dean thought he looked rather like a lost yuppie. All dark hair and eyes, clothes that were soaked in too much money, white shirt looking like it would cost more than Dean had ever had in his life. "Someday, you will stop seeing me as the enemy."

"Yeah because the kidnapping and imprisonment thing just sings all about love."

"Dean," Michael said, voice flat, and he felt dissected. Unable to do a damn thing to stop anything of worth and he hated himself a little more. Their one great plan was gone. "I told you when we met the first time that you and I were destined for this. That we are here together now only reaffirms that."

There was the bitter taste of bile threatening the back of his throat, that somehow this was all some great scheme for them, and soon the torturing, and who knew what else, what would start. Hell all over again, and he deserved it. He deserved every single second of it for breaking down there, for his role in starting this whole mess in the first place.

"Why? Why the hell do this now?"

"You have given me a tactical advantage and time. There is no rush outside of knowing that for every second you spend resisting, Sam is tortured."

Dean swallowed, something heavy caught in him, and he pushed his broken fingers against the wood planks of the porch. Searing pain, things felt grounded again like he could focus, keeping his mind from going off on that.

"And what, then me and Sammy can frolic in our little heaven at an eternal Thanksgiving?"

"There will be no more Sam."

Those words felt like they had gone right through him, ripping open everything that was left to hold onto. Everything twisted and wrong, and what last little bit of hope he had was snuffed out, as he clumsily threw his bottle with his battered hand.

Michael was gone before it hit, the bottle harmlessly littering the ground with amber pieces.


	2. Chapter 2

**...**

* * *

 _Think Dean, you gotta think,_ he demanded of himself, as he looked at the fog bank that was flowing just outside his little patch of hell. It wouldn't do no good to just sit here and wait for the angel to show back up. Sam not existing wasn't an option, even if the other –

 _Don't go there,_ he told himself.

He cursed, his fingers were a swollen mess, pissed at himself for smashing up his gun hand. It was stupid, he had been all rage filled, and it had gotten him nowhere. Less than nowhere, as he now had to draw with his left. He could do that, he was just out of practice.

Not that any of that mattered because he had to get into the fog and find a way out of this place. There had to be something, even a pinprick of a hole to work with.

He had half a mind to go kick down those tulips that seemed to be watching him, all mournful and grinning at his abject stupidity.

"Not being able to see distresses you."

Michael's voice was somewhere behind him, and Dean made himself not jump. He wondered if it was a preprogramed thing with them to always show up behind. Better for the instant kill.

He kicked himself for that helpful, uplifting thought.

"No shit, Sparky. Don't like not being able to see stuff coming."

Suddenly, the fog lifted and he could see a vast country side that seemed to be a valley between two mountain ranges. As he turned around he saw Michael lowering his hand, watching him, as if he was going to become dangerous. As if he was going to empty his pistol into this thing, which he already knew would only result in a beat down.

That damn wall was still there though, and he cursed under his breath.

"I do not wish you to exhaust yourself trying to climb mountains to find an escape that does not exist."

"Glad my wellbeing is on your list of important shit."

"Come, Dean, don't be so vulgar. The appropriate response would be 'thank you'."

"Thank you," he said, trying for a cocky grin, invisible wall to his back, as he inched away because Michael seemed to have come closer without actually moving. "Thanks for fucking up my family, for wanting to destroy the world, for –"

"Are any of those things my fault? Think carefully, child, since I do no recall encouraging, or making deals with demons, or selling sacred immortal things to be defiled by their hands."

It was a brief impulse and he looked away, could feel the heat of shame rush up through him, and Michael was just there. The angel was breathing next to his ear, the heat of Michael intense. Terror rang through all parts of him.

"Tell me, Dean, isn't it the free will you so proudly tout that led to this one place? Facing the very situation that you were always destined to end at?"

"What the hell do you want?" He was amazed he got those words out at all, that some sort of violence hadn't already erupted, like his spine being ripped out ala Mortal Combat style still attached to his severed head. He didn't get why it hadn't gotten that bad, why it was this.

"Because you expect violence."

That pressure was gone and he was alone. Or as alone as he could be, since he was fairly certain Michael had a creeper mode. Some sort of invisible stalker method of watching the little monkey dance in his cage until breakdown.

Sucking in much needed air, he got himself calmed down. Spazzing out would help little, and there was the issue of Sam not existing, or where Adam was. He had to keep going, so he did.

 **...**

* * *

The dining room table seemed stable, made out of some kind of real wood that probably could hold up ten big dudes lounging on it. Dean was delighted and started dragging it through the house because ladders didn't seem to be a thing.

Somehow he was managing to get the heavy ass thing through the front door, shirt and jeans sticking to him from sweat, when he thought he heard wing beats. Michael was watching him struggle with a big damn table one handed, and something like anger shook a little freer.

"You are fascinating," the archangel said, head tilting, as Dean cleared the door finally.

The table, he was fairly certain, weighed as much as him, but he thought that if he balanced right he could just pull it down the couple of steps. Not like the angel was going to help when he had the whole 'Dean show' going on.

"Just trying to be useful," he replied, getting himself situated, and pulling cautiously. If he did this wrong he could be flattened and then have no say in the whole healing department.

There was a soft sound and then Michael was at the other end. Dean thought he was going to just stop him, but the angel merely lifted it up, waiting. He paused, not knowing how to take it, how it should be taken, or if he should take help. Michael, the little power ranger that he was, just waited for him to either accept this situation or leave.

Seeing few options, since he needed the table out here, he finally shrugged and managed to take the weight with his one good hand. It was slow going, awkward with his inability to shift the load, and his fear of running into the now much harder to find wall. Apparently rolling fog had a purpose after all.

They got there and he congratulated himself when the angel put his side down and stepped away. With his right elbow and left hand for leverage, he hopped up to it, the table stable, and started feeling his way around the wall at a higher height. It was going to be a bitch to drag it all the way around though.

"Tell me, Dean, do you plan to build a staircase of furniture up to the sky?"

"Maybe, if that's what it takes," he answered, not looking back. He shouldn't have his back to this thing, but it wasn't like he had a choice. Michael had been right about one thing, the longer he was here the more Sam suffered. He needed to bust out and then, find a better way to bust Sam out.

And after that, they had to somehow avoid everything that would be hunting them for the rest of time. He decided that he could work out the details on that later.

"You had to have known that you were going to lose Sam. That it was inevitable."

This portion was exhausted, and he hopped down, making a mark in the dirt with his boot heel before dragging the table over. He couldn't let himself think about Sam because some part had always hoped for a miracle. That maybe, if they just did one thing right, they could have some peace.

He was so fractured that he felt a touch would burst him into dust.

"So what fresh hell is Adam in?"

"None," the archangel said, voice still flat in their angel way, and Dean glanced back. Michael was still watching him, making no move to stop him. "His soul is with his mother. I keep my promises."

There was some undercurrent to those words that caused a shiver to creep up his spine.

"Sure, yeah, gotcha. After you tortured him –"

"I did no such thing." Yeah, that voice was more strained, and Dean felt he was hitting a good live nerve here, as he got down to move the table again. "I simple healed him and told him the truth – that I was in need of his assistance to walk the earth."

"Oh, forgot, you send your goons to get their hands all bloody so you can keep being all pious and holy."

"Dean –"

"Doesn't make the shit your selling smell any better," he growled, Michael beside him now, hand on the table. "Doesn't excuse you for not even bothering to protect anything."

The table gave a loud crack, wood squealing as it gave, and Dean was torn between complete fear and sorrow over his handy boost.

"There's the Mikey I've been waiting for," he said quietly, the angel's face blank, but rage was bright in those eyes. "Gotta say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree with your siblings."

A step forward and Michael was in his face. Dean braced, waiting for impact, waited for those hands to maul him worse than a bear on crack. Instead, that head turned away and a wave of Michael's hand fixed the table.

"Try not to fall. I don't want to listen to your dribble when I have to repair you."

Then he was alone, the countryside yawning out past his jail like a mocking blow, laughing that he could only make it so far to freedom.

 **...**

* * *

Nothing.

That's all he had, complete and utter bupkis after dragging the table around for three laps. Everything was sore and protesting, but he noticed he didn't feel hunger, or had the need for a piss. Even after he had broken down and drank some water from the tap because he was certain days had passed in his slow progress.

Where ever he was, it seemed like he didn't have basic needs, only things that he did to himself. Which wasn't all that comforting.

Not to mention, it was always daylight here. He was unsure if that was good or bad. Good from the stand point that he could always see; there weren't any real dark spots where things like angel murderers could be hiding waiting to gank him. On the other hand, he wasn't sure he liked the never changing anything. It added a whole layer of sinister to the already creepy place.

There were hours where he imagined he was trapped in some type pastoral landscape. Images of people in a museum looking at his painting, marveling at the little man trying to escape. Something unhinged came out of him, a sound that should have been a laugh, but was cracked and distorted.

So.

The table having proved useless, he had half a mind to really start stacking furniture. He was reckless enough to do that after all, but he thought he might be going about this the wrong way. After eyeing the grass, he went back inside and searched every inch of space. It was in the small little cellar that seemed to be populated with normal human things that he found it, a shovel.

A voice in the back of his mind protested that if Michael left it there it meant that he wasn't concerned with Dean's Great Escape homage.

 _Doesn't matter_ , he told himself, walking back out to the day that seemed permanently stuck in mid-morning. _Gotta try. Can't just lay down and die after Sam –_

He cut off those thoughts real quick. Sam was in hell so the earth would be free and he wasn't going to take that away from his brother. It was what Sam had done, his wishes that Dean wouldn't do anything stupid to set the whole thing in motion again. Saying yes would be at the top of the long list of stupid things he could do.

Trying to dig with healing fingers was a chore though.

"Dean." That voice was almost like a sigh from his right, and he didn't bother looking over. He could dig one handed, he could.

Michael was right in his personal space again, and he was going back and forth between a lecture, or just bashing his head in with the shovel. Fingers on his hand, a spark, and then all the pain was gone.

"If I wanted your help, I'd ask."

"Stupid child," the angel growled, shoving him against the barrier, his shoulders hitting with a sharp thud before being held in place.

"I know what you're doing," Dean continued, not caring what happened. "Trying to break me. Might as well bust out the chains, Mike, cause Alastair taught me a lot."

"You think that's what this is about," Michael hissed and, yeah, way too close. Dean tried to move his eyes, at least, to not look. "If I wanted you broken you would be. If I wanted you to be a heap of weeping worthlessness, you would have been long before now. You never would have gotten out of the Beautiful Room, Dean. I never should have allowed Castiel near you."

"What the hell is this then? Because I am so goddamn confused right now by what you want."

Michael released him, backing up a few paces, and Dean thought he was going to leave without answering. There were times he thought Michael leaving was a cross between a fit of rage and just spite, but those eyes were on him again.

"There wasn't time for this before, Dean. Time to take you, because it would leave Sam off to go wander into my brother's arms immediately. So, I took a different approach, allowed you to believe you could save everything before understanding what your purpose was. It's why I sent Zachariah, he never understood the meaning of expendable."

"Nice way to talk about family," Dean said, something cold in his belly at their near misses. Of being able to kill Zach and watch him flame out. Michael merely rolled his head before tilting it back to take in their fake sky.

"You were created for me, to be with me. You, even in your stubbornness, understood at one point that you needed to come to me, that I would help you. But your brother –" Michael cut himself off but not before Dean couldn't hear the sheer rage that flowed through those last words.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, something clicking in his head, before he got his cock sure grin back in place, hooking a thumb through a belt loop. "You're jealous of Sam."

"Don't try to speak of things you don't understand."

"You are." He felt his grin grow wider as Michael lowered his head down. Those eyes were almost silver now, the angel seeping through. "You're all pissy that Sammy came back, that he sent your sadistic brother back downstairs, that he –"

The air in him was just gone as he was shoved back into the barrier, a quick whoosh, before Michael's fingers curled around his neck.

"You bow legged, slack jawed, poor excuse for a maggot let alone a man," Michael intoned, words dripping with pure hate. Dean's tongue clicked, useless, there wasn't air for anything. "You little fly of a life on this planet that was supposed to be glorious. Supposed to be as radiant as the sun and here you are, all broken and leaking self-hate. I will never understand why anyone, let alone your brother, would sacrifice anything for you."

 _Don't hold back Mikey,_ he thought as his world grew fuzzier, less well defined, as that grip still held. _Show me what you are._

He was released and fell to his knees, panting, big gulps of breath being sucked into his lungs, his vision trying to right.

"Dig as many holes as you want, Dean."

When he looked up, he was alone.

 **...**

* * *

There was no way to keep track of time here. Even by hunger. Nothing changed unless he changed it. The sheer mass of holes he had dug trying to find where the barrier ended was a testament to that. The way they blended together into an almost uniform trench around his little hovel. That ache had settled deeper, but he still felt little need for sleep. And most of that had come from pain, shock and grief.

It took a lot to not just start swinging his shovel against the invisible wall in a frenzy.

Instead, he sat on the back step with nothing to show for it but being dirt covered and sticky with sweat. Every inch of him was coated in a neat sheet of grime. There was nothing for it and, if he stayed still too long, he kept thinking of Sam in hell with Lucifer digging in those claws. Jesus, he had let his baby brother go to hell, and he made himself get up before he was lost to that thought alone.

The house had a small, basic layout: kitchen, dining area, living room, bedroom and off the bedroom, a bathroom. Seeing that the water in the kitchen worked, it wasn't a far stretch to think the shower did, too. He dragged himself through, not caring if he left muddy splotches on the pristine carpet. The whole place felt like Michael had stopped over at a magazine rack, thumbed through a few, and then just figured that this is what humans liked.

Everything was too perfect, from color matching furniture in various shades of brown to the soft blue shades on the walls. Not a thing was like what he was used to, dingy wallpaper, questionable sheets and new life forms growing in grout. It didn't smell right, look right, feel right. This wasn't for him even if he appreciated the cleanliness of it all.

Even the bathroom was like that he saw as he flipped on the light. Light blue walls, sparkling white everything else that made it dazzling. Even the towels matched and had no stains. Dean didn't consider a hotel truly questionable unless the towels had more than three unidentifiable stains each.

Not that it mattered as he stripped off his clothes and got the water on. Of course, it had good pressure and he wouldn't be surprised if the hot water ran for eternity if he just left it alone. It felt good though, the heat against his sore muscles that never needed sleep here. Soap was there and rubbed at the grime on him, trying to get it out from what he could see. At least he could do that.

 _Don't think about that._

Some guilt was clawing up in him that every second he wasted, Sam was suffering. That his baby brother was slowly being peeled away till Lucifer was left with a husk to wear around. That every moment wasted here was a moment Sam screamed.

 _Don't think. Don't go there._

He would give anything in that moment to trade places with his brother, to let Sam not feel pain ever again. Even trapped, he was better off here, and his knees where giving out. He got himself down in the tub, hunched over, and just lost. So damn lost, and he hadn't even wept for dad like this. Hadn't allowed himself too because it just kept going, everything around him had rolled on despite his own world shattering. Here, though, it was annunciated, loud and bright because this wasn't the world, and he was the only thing truly alive.

Hope at escape was quickly fleeing and he would be here with Sam screaming in hell until the sun exploded.

"Dean."

"Don't touch me," he muttered, trying to keep himself away from where he thought the archangel was without looking, still hunched over. "Don't fucking touch me."

He hated how ruined his voice sounded.

The water was turned off and he felt a towel being placed around him in the sudden absence of the heat. He knew that bastard was right behind him, probably crouched down, close to his back.

"I wish you had let Zachariah just beat me, twist that word out over this. Let him drag me off and just bleed me instead of what you're doing."

"I am not my brothers," Michael said, his voice strangely soft, but Dean shook his head, giving off a spray of water, and he wondered if he looked like the dog he was.

"You are. You have that same hate hard on for us just like all of them. You're just more civilized about it, more," he searched for the right word, "dignified in your hate fest. Doesn't mean you wouldn't rip me apart while enjoying it."

"Dean –"

"I don't even get you. What the hell do you want from me? Why do it this way other than 'time exists now'?"

"I was commanded to love you. To obtain your consent."

Those words, Dean can't help the laugh that just flows out of him. Because what a goddamn farce it was. Love, like these things knew half a shit about something like that. All they seemed to do was blow things up and kill each other.

"I could say the same for humans."

"Mind reading, not a fan," Dean muttered, still staring at the tub corner. Michael made a sound, something that sounded slightly amused, and Dean cut him off before he extolled the virtues of being where he wasn't invited.

"Being commanded to love something isn't the same thing as loving something, Mikey." He paused, the angel quiet behind him, and he leaned forward more. "Just, just don't do it this way. I don't care, cut me open, bleed me dry, anything but this nice shit that isn't real."

"You want to be able to blame me," Michael said, the archangel moving closer. Dean busied himself with trying to shuffle against the edge of the tub, hoping it would give. "That's not how this works, Dean. This was always your path. Sam accepted his part and, regardless of his original intentions, he took on his role."

"Stop."

"Because. if you can't hate me, you'll hate yourself."

"Shut up," Dean whispered, curling his fists against his naked thighs, feeling exposed even with the towel over him. Little rivers of water still inched their way down from his hair, running across his face. "Just shut the hell up."

"Our brothers are both suffering," Michael continued because he was sadistic, Dean decided. His voice was still gentle, soft and low, the heat of him so close it was almost suffocating. "It is the final thing you can do for Sam, to end his torment."

"Not for the price of the world."

A hand was in his hair and he pressed his forehead against the wall trying to will himself to be strong, to not give into this. "We have the advantage now. It will be quick and finally over."

It had to be a trick, nothing could be that simple, and he managed to shake his head. Michael had an arm around his waist, the tile a cooling slick against his skin and he didn't' deserve whatever peace this thing was offering.

"Rest, Dean."

Words failed to be released as his vision drifted to blackness.


	3. Chapter 3

**...**

* * *

Either he should be impressed with the small number of bottles on the table, or disgusted with himself. He was undecided, leaning back in one of the chairs from the kitchen, wondering why Michael hadn't bothered with days here. Maybe the archangel feared he'd go nuts if he knew how much time was passing on earth.

 _Don't do it, don't factor in hell time,_ he told himself, and took another swig of beer. He had never bothered moving the table back inside, and really, what difference did it make in the long run? Outside of the annoying trips to go get beer out of the fridge, that was.

It wasn't just Sam, it was Bobby. It was Cas. He had no one left, they all followed him to their deaths whether or not it worked, and it hadn't. Being here showed that much, in stark relief no less.

 _The earth's not on fire, the earth's not on fire,_ he told himself, disappointed that the bottle he was currently nursing was empty. _Have to keep it that way, have to make sure so Sam didn't go down bloody for nothing._

He popped another beer, adding the empty to his little collection. There was brief thought of stacking them and getting something to throw. Like back when they were kids and those side fairs full of scams was their one big joy in life. Dad had taught him how to tell which ones where scamming hard and which ones were softer. Sammy always had wide eyes when he'd win the biggest prize for him, his baby brother carrying his new friend to their most current home.

"Self-pity is a poor look on you."

Dean didn't bother to turn around when Michael's voice came from somewhere on the porch. He tipped his chair a little more, starring out across a countryside he could never be in. Not wholly.

"Was thinking of setting up my own carnival attraction."

"Is that so?" Michael was closer now despite the lack of noise, but Dean kept his back turned. Wouldn't make a difference if he was able to see it coming.

"Yeah. I mean there's jack all to do here. Got to make my own fun it looks like."

There was the heat of the angel, close, and in his buzzed mind he wondered if Michael ran the risk of spontaneously combusting. Granted, he claimed that Adam wasn't all up in there with him, but it still made him wince. The terrible idea of the illusion shattered and watching his brother erupt in flames, again.

"There is a way to stop it."

"Not saying it," he said, jiggling his left leg. That restless feeling wouldn't leave. There weren't any distractions here to feed it which was how he had started in on the copious amounts of beer to tame.

"You speak as though I would intentionally wrong you."

"Man, at this point, I would trust pretty much any of your brothers over you." Dean shook his head, taking another drink, as Michael moved around, leaning against the table, arms folded on his chest. There was a look there that Dean couldn't quite place in that almost blank face. "I'm waiting for you to get tired and either start in on the pain, or just leave me to rot. Like you did in that whacked out future you sent me too."

There was a curl of movement at the corner of Michael's mouth. "That was Raphael. He was overly anxious to repay your 'hospitality' to him. I warned him against it."

"Why would that be?"

"Because I knew the outcome."

Dean let a smirk stretch his mouth to hide his surprise. "Well la-dee-da. Guess you were right about something."

The angel shifted, something tightening in him, and Dean turned his focus back out onto the countryside. Mike probably did have a point about him not running off too far with his wall nonsense. Right now, he would be compulsively looking for any way out of this hole.

"Why must you always pick a fight?" the angel finally asked, his voice showing more weariness than expected.

"I always pick a fight?" He raised an eyebrow, not turning to look at Michael. "Little old me? You're the one whose world ending fight got us into this mess. Can't clean up your own mess, gotta drag us into it."

Michael's hand was on the back of the chair, his other on the table, and it pushed him forward a bit. It was disconcerting and in some ways it felt like yelling at Sam. One of their old pissing matches where Sam got physical with the rest of the room but not him. Not usually.

"You think I want this, boy? That this is what I dreamed of when I vowed I would always obey and be faithful only to Him?"

Dean snorted, something loud and definitely uncouth. "Think you left out a few steps of the dance, Mikey. Or is your desire to finally love humans the reason why you're courting little old me?" There was definitely rage in the archangel now and Dean just did not care. "I mean, before you put your sword through your brother's heart."

"Stupid, foolish little worm," Michael hissed before releasing the chair and walking a ways away from the table. "You obstinate wretch. How I got saddled with something like you I will never understand even if Father returns just to explain it."

"Just lucky," Dean said around the mouth of his bottle. "But keep up with the sweet talk, I mean, it's just winning me over." He fluttered his eyelids, enjoying the way those fists curled. "Sorry, maybe I was a priest in another life. Or I dunno, some poor, naïve orphan. Something worthy of your magnificence."

It was pushing all those little buttons in Michael and damn it was easy. It shouldn't be so easy, watching Michael keep his temper in check just for a little while longer. Until of course he couldn't and his true nature came out, just like it did with all of his siblings. Cas may have been like a brother at the end, but the guy still drug him into an alley and beat him half to death out of disappointment.

"We could have been done, had this over with, if you would just see reason."

"What reason? Cause I don't got a good one, and I mean more than guilt, to chance taking out the world. Not to mention that whole paradise thing. Like I told Cas, rather live bloody than be a Stepford bitch."

He made himself not think of Sam down there, bleeding and being torn apart all over again, every minute there begging for someone to hear him. No one was coming because no one could come.

"You act as though your agenda is the one that is correct," Michael finally said, voice having dropped, and his eyes were showing signs that he was slipping.

"There is right and there is wrong. That's all there is too it."

"And which one of us is right? The one that is more stubborn or the one that yells the loudest, Dean, in this world of yours?"

"Sorry we can't all get orders from Daddy. Wait, you can't be because he doesn't give a shit."

"Watch your tone, boy."

A lazy smirk spread on his face, he could feel how much it pissed off Michael, angel drifting closer.

"Don't like that He left huh? Ever wonder why?"

A skip of his heart, then he was moving, already knowing what Michael was going for. The chair skittered out from under him as he moved, catching his balance and not even spilling his beer. Not too shabby given how impaired he was getting. An angry kick from the angel at the offending chair, the whine of nails being strained past their point of endurance.

"Hit a nerve," Dean mused as Michael watched him.

"You desire to hurt me," the angel said quietly, those eyes shifting away from anger to something else that unsettled him deeply.

"I've lost everything because of you. Family is dead, Sam in hell, I mean, Jesus, the last thing you have to take is me so here we are." He waved his free hand at the world around them. "All tucked up nice and neat in this little bird cage you made. You still get to have all your zillions of brothers to go flitting back home to. Me, well I got a baby brother in hell, another one in heaven who probably hates me, dead everything else."

"You over-estimate my brothers." Yep, something was changing in that face now, something twisting just slightly at the corners of his eyes. "You mistake duty for love."

"Yeah, well I guess heaven's Jesus camp is a difficult place to inspire the loving. You know, with the torture methods and all. Like with Ana."

"I am protecting them."

Michael was suddenly a lot closer and not just angry. Dean made himself look at him, not back up. He nonchalantly took another sip of beer to hide the tremors in his hands.

"I would die protecting heaven and everything it is," Michael continued. "I love them all, but you have met them. What would you have me do?"

Dean had no answer. There really wasn't one because the thought of psychotic angels running around with the power of a nuke at their fingertips while trying to figure out free will was close to sobering.

"You may hate me for many things, but surely even you know the price of keeping together what little you have left. When you champion free will, don't turn around and come to me to fix the consequences your actions have wrought."

He was alone because Michael always left when the conversation was getting interesting. Which wasn't fair, he wasn't able to flutter his ass out. If he was stuck here than the archangel should be too.

Dean felt that his world, at this moment, needed more alcohol.

 **...**

* * *

"I know your plan now and it's got jack to do with kindness. It's all about driving Dean insane by silence."

The ceiling he was talking to was mournfully mute on this issue. Cursing, he went to the bedroom because beer just wasn't enough. He had noticed that his bag, of all things, had been brought here, or at least a replication of his bag. Not that it mattered, though he was mentally kicking himself for not keeping the angel be gone oil in his bag proper instead of just in the trunk.

Rooting through it, he found what he was looking for, a fifth of whiskey that was still almost full. The scent it released was heavenly after all that weak ass beer. He knew Sam would have comments over this. There would probably be some silent Sam looks filled with worry over his drinking, but Sam wasn't here. That was why he was drinking after all, because Sam wasn't here, and he should be here. Sam would appreciate this house, would probably set up shop, his gangly self draped across the couch, all relaxed and happy.

Dean smiled at the image of a happy, passed out Sam in his mind as he took a drink. Pawing through what was at least a reasonable facsimile of his things, he found everything as he had left it. Clothes, personal crap, some aspirin along with other pills. He popped a couple of the former, sure there was a massive hangover in his future.

Content that everything was as it should be, he got himself propped up on the headboard, boots on the bed spread, head against the wall.

"You know, if you had just been honest at the start it could have been a different story," he said, continuing his conversation with the ceiling. "I mean, I wouldn't have been all for the end of the world but it wouldn't have been this big mess."

Nothing and he sighed, taking another drink. He moved the bottle, watching the amber liquid flow back and forth against the glass. Bastard probably couldn't even hear him anyways, probably only came by to check that his toy was still alive before he went back to whatever it was he did.

Gabriel's words were suddenly in his head, the whole older brother devoted to dad and the younger not liking the plan. He shut his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose, like that would erase that whole terrible line of thinking. He got part of it, some of it at least, and he wasn't so sure about his mental state.

But his dad wasn't God and God should have known better, should just say something. God would go through the trouble to talk to them in heaven about how screwed they were because he couldn't be bothered, but not just say stop. Given Michael's deranged mind, he was sure that if God just said 'no apocalypse', Mike would just let him out and he could grieve his brothers like a normal person and that would be that.

He decided he was thinking too much still, and took another drink, letting his head thud back against the wall.

"If you had just been honest I wouldn't have to hate you completely," he told the ceiling.

He figured he was still this side of sane if the plaster wasn't speaking to him yet.

 **...**

* * *

A part of him knew he was tragically wasted. It didn't take his feet fumbling around underneath of him to bring him that news flash. At least the grass out here was soft. Well it looked soft. He vaguely remembered laying in it and it hadn't been unpleasant. But that was a long ass time ago, or it felt like it. Time passing wasn't a clear thing here, if it existed to begin with. All he knew was that the earth supposedly wasn't on fire, Sam was still in hell, and the rest of his family was dead.

Probably best not to think on those things, and he let them slid away like water over his mind.

Those goddamn tulips. They seemed to bob their heads on their own even if there was no breeze. That whole invisible wall thing probably cut off fresh air. Maybe he was slowly suffocating, running out of oxygen, and would finally pass out and die. Didn't matter because he was sure those flowers where talking about him behind his back again.

He was convinced in this moment that they were spies. Michael spies. Evil archangel spies that spied a whole lot and told Michael when best to visit him. The sound of wings beside him and he nearly yelled 'Eureka' at this brilliant discovery.

"Dean?"

He sluggishly turned because coordination wasn't his forte, as Sam the geek would say, and saw the archangel in question studying him. A slight downward turn of that mouth, and Dean figured it was because he figured out the whole, top secret, plants as spies thing. Plants didn't usually talk, but he knew an angel could make them.

"They aren't – Dean, is that why you're in the flower bed?"

He looked down, realizing that he had trampled some of the monsters, and smiled broadly. At least it was a good day. Maybe they screamed a sound he couldn't hear, but the angel could.

"I hear the celestial music," Michael said slowly, taking him in as he swayed in the no breeze air. "How much have you been drinking?"

"A smidge," Dean said holding up his thumb and forefinger slightly separated. He grinned again. "Maybe more."

Michael shifted, and Dean knew he was unhappy. Not that he had expressions, but if he stared just hard enough there were certain things. Like the way one shoulder tilted, or his fingers moved by his side. Dean nodded to himself, not unhappy or just that. Sad. The angel was sad over something when he should be delighted that Dean was observant enough to take out the flower spies. Since he knew the truth now, they were Raphael's flower spies come to take them down and all.

"Dean, I'd like to ask you a quest–"

Dean cut him off by just wrapping his arms around him, because, holy hell, was he at least starved for any kind of contact. Michael was still, but Dean could feel it, something beyond the heat he always felt off the angel. Then it was in him, a bloom of flame, and he held on tighter, that sensation making him pay attention. It was as if some vital part had been missing and he was so confused. Because he hadn't been aware some giant chunk of Dean was misplaced.

Sam would bitch at him because he always set things down in weird places when he drank too much.

Hands were on his arms, and he was being moved back. The angel had liked that though because those eyes were half closed in a startled look. At least he had an expression.

Dean was sad that God hadn't made them with expressions normally.

"You talk too much," he said all blurry, taking satisfaction in shutting Michael up.

That mouth moved like it was going to say something, when his legs felt all mushy and he started sliding down into the tulips. He wondered how they saw as Michael guided him down. They seemed so much bigger down here.

"You should lie down," the angel was saying, but Dean shook his head.

Then he immediately stopped that noise, as his stomach churned, uneasy.

Michael was kneeling next to him and Dean should know better than to be bossy. He managed to get across what he wanted. Which was Michael seated better so he could be near. It had been so long since he had been near someone that it didn't matter if this was a something. Head on that shoulder, feeling the pulse of him under that shirt, Dean saw that the buttons had little rings of silver around the outside of them. They glinted in the light and he played with them, fascinated.

"You're sad," he slurred out, making it a statement because he was sure of things right now. Or at least that thing.

That heat against him, the impossible stillness of the angel, and he thought he might fall asleep when Michael finally answered.

"Yes."

"Cause Luci is the world's biggest, most douchiest asshole ever made?"

A rather undignified sound came out of the angel, something like a bark, a short snap, that Dean thought was amusement. At least he could pretend it was. It seemed like it was. He really hoped the flowers didn't belong to Raphael because he thought the other archangel out there would be mad over them like this.

"I'm sad for you," Michael said, and Dean tried to raise his head. The constant sunshine of this place made it hard, and he squinted up, rocking his head back to try to see. Michael was looking out across everything, arm tightening around him. "I think it's worse. I knew Morning Star would never…"

That statement wasn't finished and Dean leaned his head back down, fumbling again with the buttons to make them shine in the light. There was something that smelled fresh, like spring and another thing he couldn't quite name that he vaguely thought of as electricity.

"Don't. Not me," he tried, head spinning a bit more, as the flowers moved when he shifted his boot. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Luci's stupid. Really stupid."

"Dean –"

But he couldn't help, but twist in those arms, turning himself just in time to vomit a foot away. That would teach those terrible tulips.

When he turned back, sour taste in his mouth that he wiped at with the back of his hand, he thought that he should probably be more upset over this development. There was a small turn at the corner of Michael's mouth, something better than the sad look.

"You're disgusting."

Dean laid his head back down on the angel's shoulder.

"Sorry," he murmured wanting to say he was sorry he was such a shit vessel. Sorry he broke the world. Sorry for being a bad soul.

"It's a shame it takes you being almost fatally impaired to be sweet."

He wondered if he'd wake up here, if Michael would leave him next to the vomit and the tulips when he went off. Then he felt that no, the archangel wouldn't. His fingers still played with the buttons, feeling the realness of them even with his eyes closed, since the world insisted on moving.

"My little brother's in hell," he whispered, Michael a furnace against him.

"I know, child. So is mine."

A feeling of peace washed over him as he slipped asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**...**

* * *

Getting himself outside, memories foggy as to what he had been up to during his binge, he noticed that something had changed. Well, multiple somethings, as at first glance, he saw that the trench he had laboriously dug was replaced with grass again. It took a trek around the house to understand what else was different.

The tulips had become dahlias. Deep golds and browns, some having flowers the size of dinner plates, and definitely, one hundred percent all the way, not tulips.

Dean rubbed his head, telling himself that he couldn't drink anymore if this was the result. There was a certainty in him that Michael didn't just change features on a whim. Distant thoughts of him sitting in the tulips with the angel, and he decided it was better to leave some things lost in a haze.

Instead, he was going to sit on the porch when he heard wings.

"Good, you are up," the angel said, face even more blank than usual, as Dean turned.

"Yeah, I'm upright. Amazing I can sleep with the always day thing going on here."

The archangel just stared at him, and Dean thought maybe he should be remembering what had happened in a hurry after all in case he was about to be dismembered.

"Is there something you want?"

"I have a proposition for you, if you can follow the rules."

"Okay," he said slowly, not liking how this was phrased. "Tell me what it is and I'll tell you if I'm game."

"I know you are restless being kept here. I will let you drive, but you can only do so with me, and you cannot stop once we are outside."

Dean blinked a few times. What the hell had he done to cause this?

"Afraid of me finding a hole?"

"No. I simply don't want to have to have to keep more of an eye on you than I have too."

He watched Michael, thinking it over. While it may not get him out of his cage in a way he liked right now, maybe it opened up possibilities in the future for him to look for some unkempt corner. There had to be a little notch somewhere in this sprawl that could get him back on actual earth.

"Alright," he said, clapping his hands together. "What kind of jalopy am I driving?"

For a moment, it looked like Michael had an indulgent smile before he raised his hand, Dean wincing out of instinct. Then the Impala was there, bright and beautiful, just as he liked her. Looking over, he saw keys hanging from between Michael's fingers.

He went to the car, running his hands over her, and it felt so real, the metal even feeling warm under this eternal sun. Opening the driver's door, the creak sounding just as it should, he slid in as Michael got in the passenger side. Everything looked the same, every little detail in place.

"Is mine still sitting in Stull?"

Michael didn't answer, just handing him over the keys.

Dean felt that maybe he didn't want an answer as to whether or not this was Baby as he turned the key, hearing the engine come to life. There was a freeing sensation in him now, they could just keep driving for eternity, and it would all be okay.

"So, do we get a road, or do you just want me to drive over the landscape? I mean, she's tough, but even for her that's a tall order."

The archangel was staring again, he could feel that gaze sink into him, and then there was a road. It wound away from here, up along the foot of the hills, and he shifted into drive. There was a temptation to close his eyes as they came to where he knew the wall was, fully expecting an impact, but there was none.

He was on the other side, one step further than he had been an hour ago as he pushed her to go faster.

It was quiet between them, the long stretch of road taking him through landscapes that were eclectic. That was a good Sam word for this, eclectic. One moment they were passing through a meadow, splattered with a rainbow of spring flowers. The next, they were in a high desert with nothing but scrub brush hugging the ground.

An hour into this trip, at least according to the dash clock, he swore they drove through a forest that had seen dinosaurs. It felt ancient, the air around him whispering secrets long forgotten, plants just familiar enough for him to vaguely recognize, but unknown all the same.

Yearning for any kind of noise he finally asked.

"What's up with the scenery?"

"It is constructed from my memories of watching earth."

Not the answer he was expecting, and he put his focus on keeping the car on the road. At times he wondered if Michael just made the road as they drove, or if it was always here and he just couldn't see it.

Trippy thoughts like that were not helpful, and he was about to break the silence when Michael did it for him.

"You were supposed to understand."

A shudder in him, the memory of Sammy telling him that Lucifer had claimed the same thing. They were both supposed to understand. Glancing over, he saw Michael staring out the window, hands in his lap but tense.

"Mike, I –"

"I was promised you would understand."

Dean swallowed and ran one of his hands down his face. All of this was no good.

"I get why you want to do what you want to do," he said carefully, trying to find the right words.

"Yet you do not see we are destined for this. All of your choices led to here –"

"You think I'm proud of that? That I wanted to be the big bad that wipes away humans so angels get their playground?"

"Dean."

He shook his head, knowing he was being watched now. Tightening his hands on the wheel until his knuckles turned white, he kept following the road. It was a desert again, one where those giant cacti grew that weighed hundreds of pounds, and he felt it was fitting. Just plants, no animals to be found anywhere, and it hit him how alone he truly was here.

"I don't get you. I don't get this giant mind fuck and this manipulation. I mean, I get that this is what you guys do to get your way, but I don't get your end game. You think being nice will mean you get to wear me to kill Sam? Man, I'm not you. I don't even know if I'd be able to kill him if he was coming for me."

Silence again and as they rolled on, this never ending land flowing past, he felt the frustration coming back. Anger, his old friend, and it was something he could hold onto, embrace fully.

"I don't get what you want anymore."

Again, nothing, and he was so damn sick of nothing, as he slammed his foot on the brake.

"Goddamn it, what do you want?"

Blinking, he found himself standing outside of the car back in the yard of his little house that he had never wanted. Knowing, but having to make sure, he walked forward, finding the barrier in place. He had broken the rules, he knew it, but a man should be able to break rules sometimes to get an answer.

Michael was nowhere in sight and he kicked one of the front tires, cursing.

 **...**

* * *

There were actual days now and he didn't know what to make of that nifty detail. The angel hadn't returned since their car ride. Dean assumed it was because being the main douchebag of heaven had made Michael used to not answering anything.

So here he sat, sun setting like a dying spark against mountains, the world with a glow of last light, drinking a beer on the porch. One beer, he reminded himself. Best not to get too carried away on that whole thing again. His replica of Baby glowed brightly, her sheen like she was always in a state of just waxed, no matter how much time passed.

Then there were wing beats. For once, for damn once, the angel was in front of him, back towards him, face turned towards the sunset.

Dean was unnerved.

"You asked me what I wanted," the archangel said quietly, not turning, his voice carrying across this little Rockwell existence. "Would you like to see?"

"Alright." He tried for bravado but, it rang false even in his own ears. This could go either way and he didn't know if he was going to be bleeding in a few seconds. If the façade was finally cracking and he took another drink.

"You must understand I love my family, even when they misbehave. I was not the one who built heaven's prisons, my Father did. But the one who caused them to be built, the one that poisoned it all, that I gave myself over to when there was nothing except us and Father – I wanted to extract the price of his betrayal from his essence."

A hand was raised up and Dean tried not to move, to fucking breath. Fingers outstretched, and then Michael turned his arm, making a fist, and everything groaned and gave. Out of pure instinct he jumped up, trying to catch his balance, as the earth moaned, mountains around them crumbling to dust. A sound and he saw what had been the sky shatter into a void filled with streaks of lightening but he thought that was the wrong word.

Everything around them lay dead and ruined.

 _Keep it together_ , he told himself. A fiery glow lit up the shattered world that had been perfect a moment ago. Michael still hadn't turned around as a hungry chasm ran fifty feet away, devouring the remains of this world in its reach.

Lucifer, wearing his Nick suit, was suddenly there and Dean instinctively took a step back.

"It did not matter the destruction," Michael continued, a sword of fire in his hand. With sharp movements he made two wounds, Lucifer collapsing. There was a crackle under his skin, eyes bright as he reached to Michael. "I wanted his suffering, I wanted to make sure he knew what he had done when he had chosen everything above me and Father."

 _Or maybe just you,_ Dean's hysterical mind supplied, as the angel turned. He took another step back and he really needed to not think.

"Yes."

Those eyes had the same glow, a dying sun, as the archangel walked around Lucifer's form that was crying out in their language. Whatever Michael had done had to be damn painful, it looked like his skin was trying not to sear off, held together out of pure hate.

"Do you think he is honestly sorry?" Michael asked crouching down, touching his brother's face, his own so blank it was like there was nothing in him. "Do you think he knows remorse?"

"Probably for crossing you, poor bastard," Dean said before he could stop himself, staring at the convulsing form.

"Correct." Michael was standing again taking a step towards him, sword still in hand.

Dean made himself not run. There wasn't anywhere to run.

"He offered to walk away. After he murdered Gabriel, I knew that he could not be trusted."

"Well, shit," Dean muttered, because some part of him had actually hoped the trickster angel had found some loophole and was back to hiding. That he wasn't actually dead and that the last memento he had left behind was a subpar porno. Not that he was the best one judging those kind of things.

"I want you to understand. Their power difference is the close to that between you and Castiel. Do you think Lucifer made an effort to spare him?"

"No."

A nod before the angel spun back around and drove his sword straight through Lucifer's back, pinning him to the ground. Dean staggered back, the weight of feeling something so old and big unraveling all around them. A screaming sound like the universe collapsing, and he went to his knees, hands over his ears. Feeling like his skin was scalding from being so close, and then it was silent. The destroyed world was still bathed in the strange glow of a dying sky. Michael was calm, always so fucking calm, his eyes brighter, like he was made of the sun itself.

"This is what I imagined over and over as I heard him scream in the Cage, telling me he would always and forever hate me for my betrayal," Michael said, that last word spat out in disgust. "It's what I saw as I waited for you to be born, waited for this moment, as I kept creation from slipping over the edge."

"You son-of-a-bitch," Dean said, hands in fists now as he sat back on his ankles. "You still wanted this when you brought me here."

"I did not lie to you. We have the advantage and Sam would not be the one who suffered."

"That, that doesn't make it better! You want to torture your own brother to death."

The angel was coming towards him now and Dean willed himself from crawling back, got himself to stay still, eyes on that sword. All that was here was the heavy scent of death, as Michael crouched in front of him, sword finally gone.

"I can't say it if this is still what you want to do. No matter what you do to me. Even if you have a way to make it less, world destroying," he said, waving a hand.

"I know, things have changed."

A head tilt, that blasted head tilt that they all did, as those eyes where still so bright he could barely look at them. Professing that this thing was not human, had never been human regardless of what he looked like, and Dean swallowed.

"What exactly has changed, Mike?"

A hand was near him. He flinched, but it still touched his face, feeling the heat from the angel, as the ruined world slipped away from him.

"You."

Alone. He was alone again, damn it. Everything was back to how it was before Michael's little show and tell.

Dean breathed, rubbing at his face with his hands because he had almost said yes to that thing. Had in a way to Zach before Sam had dragged him back and he stabbed that smarmy angel in the head. This thing he was hoping that would keep things to a dull roar because he had wanted to hold to the belief that Michael wasn't that far gone.

"That still doesn't answer the damn question!" he yelled at the sky, repaired and shifting into night.


	5. Chapter 5

**...**

* * *

Normally, if he wanted to sleep he could and have it be dreamless to boot, which he assumed was from Michael's handy dandy tinkering. Not that he wouldn't take it. Now though, oh hell, after that _'I wanted to tear the world to its foundation as Lucifer bled upon it'_ demonstration he couldn't keep still. Everything was alive and jumpy in him. He realized he was buzzed on the road to wasted and went back to keeping it to one beer per hour to keep a little of the edge off.

Couldn't let himself be caught unaware.

He could take Baby and start up the whole 'search for a hole' thing he had been doing when he first landed here. Especially after the startling discovery that the barrier keeping him in was long gone. Pissing off Mike though seemed like a bad idea, at least for the next few hours. Placate then escape, he reminded himself.

So, he sat at his table that was still in what passed for a backyard, watching the distant dawn pull across the horizon. Despite the day-night cycle, the temperature really didn't change, not that it was bad. He didn't want to go give Mike ideas to freeze him out, or roast him, to get him to comply. Though some nagging belief in him felt that if that had been the original plan the angel would have already resorted to it. Be more of a whispering in his ear type of worm since he wasn't all that stable.

Speaking of winged dicks, Michael arrived, signaled by a small displacement of air. The angel stood by the table, watching the sun come up with him.

Dean made himself keep staring straight ahead, looking unbothered.

"I wanted you to understand," Michael said after a while. "I know you fear me for it, but I needed you to know the change."

"I still don't," Dean said feeling slow, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean, why not just bop down in Adam and do all that? Why go through all of this? Not that I'm encouraging that," he hastily added, hoping this wasn't a new idea.

"Our destiny was to be together –"

"Christ, not that agai –" he cut himself off under the cold stare. "Okay, so you felt that it had to be, ya know."

"When you and Sam gave me the opportunity, I realized that I was simply being given another way. That it was still meant to be you and me in the end. I told you, there is no free will."

Not a can of worms he wanted to reopen anytime soon, trying to shove his growing panic back in the box. Images of Lucifer in that whacked out future, telling him that Sammy was always going to say yes in Detroit, were far too vivid in his head. Not like they had adverted anything there, instead just strolled on in, and he felt like he couldn't get enough air in that moment.

"So what is it now, if it isn't any of that mess?"

"Your soul," Michael said, his voice so quiet that Dean was sure he had heard that one wrong.

"I'm sorry?"

"I want your soul, Dean Winchester."

Some wild thought that maybe Mike just wanted to eat him, or maybe display him on his angelic mantel place. Polished up all bright, as he showed off to his other winged dick friends – ' _Yes, this one I caught during the apocalypse. Isn't he lovely?'_

Michael was staring at him now, something twitching at his mouth, and Dean was sure he was laughing. Completely laughing his ass off, and he bit back a comment about mind reading.

"Man, why do you want that old, busted up thing?"

Shifting, Michael sat on the table, blocking his view of the sun, and something safe to stare towards if one didn't count the whole blindness thing. Which probably wouldn't be that bad of a thing here, or even permanent.

"It's not." Michael raised up a hand, cutting off his protests. "You don't remember much from when you thought the Tulips were gossiping? It's alright, you were very impaired."

Without really thinking, Dean put the bottle in his hand back on the table. That explained so much as to the flower change.

"What the hell else did I do?"

Not that he wanted to know, because it got them to this weird awkward place, and he wasn't sure it was better or worse.

"You were fascinated by the buttons on my shirt," Michael said, and Dean put his hands over his face groaning. This was like some bad frat night. "Before that though, you thought I was sad so you held me."

"I – I don't even know. I'm sorry?"

"Don't be." Michael put his fingers under his chin to raise his face back up. "Your soul reached out to me."

Brief little flashes of images in his mind as he told his brain to stop trying to remember. That strange feeling of wholeness that he hadn't been sure of, of where it had even come from.

"I am not a physical being, Dean, I crave different things. I have not felt that since Lucifer first started turning his face from heaven, me, Father. Feeling that with you, even for that breathe of time, made me understand that's what I wanted, truly needed, was that."

"It's a terrible soul," Dean whispered, trying to look away at anything else. He tried to look at the table or the grass or even just his shoes because nobody could want this. There was too much blood on his hands, what he had done even before he had gotten to hell, let alone when he broke and lifted the knife himself down there.

"I never should have allowed them to touch you, to even attempt to hollow you out."

Dean kept staring at the table, unable to form words.

"Castiel told me that even in the bowels of hell, where they kept you and committed their atrocities on you, you were still radiant."

"No," Dean moaned, closing his eyes, wanting to be anywhere but here. He couldn't listen to these lies as he felt a hand on his chest. Michael was beside him, keeping him in the chair.

"When he was falling, he prayed to me. He had been drinking, most likely influenced from being with you, and the prayer started off something like 'Michael, you complete bastard'."

"Cas? We're talking about the same geeky, stick up his ass, 'I obey only God' Cas, right?"

"Yes," Michael breathed, and Dean smiled slightly. "He told me that it didn't matter, that his one goal at this time was to keep you out of my hands. That I would destroy something so beautiful in the end."

"Can we –" His mouth wasn't working well, hands clutching his knees, and he wanted to just fold himself into the earth. Tell Michael he could just leave him here instead of telling him something like this.

"If you give yourself to me, it must be willingly. You must trust me."

A soft press into his hair, then the archangel was gone again, as Dean felt himself begin to break. Maybe it was a mercy so he could be alone as he rested his forehead against the table. Biting the base of his thumb to hold in a scream, he knew this was worse. Knowing all this made it worse.

 **...**

* * *

"God, how can nothing wrong equal so boring."

Dean ran his hand down his face, the archangel sitting on the couch across from him, watching. He pushed his fingers against the fine crush of velvet on the chair, not wanting to talk about all that other serious shit right now. "I mean, what the hell do you guys do in heaven for fun?"

"I do not know if our definitions of fun are compatible."

It was answers like those that made him wary, they really did. Though he did image some little angel sitting circle where they all took turns talking about how extra-special their orders were. And then probably having a fist fight, or whatever they did, to settle who was the most special and had the best job.

Michael's lip twitched again and Dean knew he was laughing in that quiet 'we pretend we don't feel but we're all crazy' way of theirs.

"I mean, Sam and I had like shit for a childhood, but we had board games. Granted we may have 'borrowed' a few, but at least we could be bored while playing Monopoly."

Another head tilt, those eyes glazed over for a moment, and he wondered if the angel was scanning the cosmos for what this Monopoly was and if it would make his little human happy.

A twist of that hand, now filled with a box, told Dean he probably wasn't far off.

"Well, come on, table's outside," he said gruffly, stalking out. Hell, if he couldn't kill something and he sure as hell didn't want to talk, he'd be damned to sit in the perfect living room staring at the commander of all.

"I could create monsters here for you." Michael's lazy voice was behind him as they walked across the back porch and down the stairs to where his ever faithful table and part time substitute ladder sat. "I feel you would find that unsatisfying."

"Probably," he agreed, taking the box and pulling off the lid. Everything looked in order as he took out the pieces, opening the game board flat. Damn, it had been so long since he had done anything like this. Maybe he should have asked for something else, but it wasn't like him and Sam ever did anything outside of fall asleep in front of the TV if they weren't actively hunting something.

"I'm the car, just calling it."

He plucked the little pewter piece out and put it on the board before getting the other cards set up. Michael pulled out a few papers and began flipping through it at lighting speed.

"Did you mojo up instructions?"

"I didn't want you to strain yourself lying to me to get the upper hand."

Dean scowled, but it wasn't appreciated since Michael hadn't looked back up. The angel was looking over the remaining free pieces to pick. When he picked up the thimble to look at it Dean snorted. Somehow he didn't think heaven had sewing circles. That was an activity which would require too much cooperation.

"I shall be the top hat," the angel finally declared placing it next to the car. "Because, I am at the top."

"Just roll the dice, Jesus."

 **...**

* * *

"This is a terrible game," the archangel said, and Dean would swear he was petulant. Like a six year old who got told that he wasn't getting that treat. The stony glare he got back told him, yep, mind reading still going on.

Two hours in and Dean was on the verge of winning. Things had been rough at first when Michael had wheeled and dealed some more expensive properties from him to form his own monopolies when Dean had been staring bankruptcy in the face. Yet luck changes, that was for damn sure.

Another sigh, and Dean saw the angel still couldn't roll doubles to get out of jail.

"Dude, it's okay. I don't care if you want to try past three rolls."

"The rules clearly state that it is only three, or I have to pay the fine," the angel said primly, as he put a fifty in the bank, very little of his money remaining.

Dean was glad there weren't active weapons out.

"Alright, whatever."

A good roll, he landed on his own utility and stretched, trying not to look like he was gloating. Not that it helped, since the very next roll landed Michael on one of the three railroads that he owned. Another low sound and Dean wondered if the board was seconds away from bursting into flames.

"Here."

It was a far cry from the happy angel just an hour ago. The paper money wordlessly thrusted at him, and Michael looked like he was contemplating destroying something. He almost suggested that they could stop, but he figured that this was going to go on to the bitter end.

 _Good Winchester, frustrate him. That'll help things._

"I should have told you that when I was like thirteen, dad took this game away from us," Dean said instead, rolling the dice and landing on free parking. He wasn't sure if fate was favoring him, or hoping he'd get stabbed.

"And why is that?"

"Well, we got into a fist fight over this stupid thing. It was already missing little houses and crap because the whole board got shoved off so many tables. Dad said something about how board games do not require a weapon's discharge."

"Who was losing?"

"I was," he said, grinning when the angel looked at him, something clicking in his head. "Man, no matter how much you build up your empire, a lot of it is just luck."

"There does seem to be little strategy after a certain point," Michael conceded, moving his little hat and managing to land on something he owned. "I dislike things normally that would require such a thing."

An answer was on his tongue when he saw Michael lean his head back, listening, and Dean figured it was probably family.

"Phone home?"

"My presence is requested," Michael said, looking at the game board. "I did not enjoy this, but I did enjoy the time with you."

Then he was gone, the little fluttering they always seemed to leave in his wake.

 **...**

* * *

Having decided to sleep because he had so little else to do at night, he was content to wake up at what looked like dawn. What he wasn't expecting, as he hauled himself up, was finding a note attached to something that he hadn't seen in forever.

' _I know you have wanted someone to speak to. There is one person in your coverage area'_ it read in careful angel scrawl.

Raising an eyebrow he flipped the phone open, which showed of course no service but a full battery. Looking under contacts he sucked his breath in.

It couldn't be real, even if the number was right. He got himself dressed, grateful that everything seemed to self-clean here, and went to make coffee. There were times he wanted to ask about the metaphysical properties of his little, well, prison, but he doubted he would like the answer. As he watched it brew, he figured the easiest answer was somewhere in heaven as that would make sense, though Gabe had been able to do a lot of this crap too.

Pinks and yellows were rising up in the east when he went outside, setting the phone down on the table, unsure. Everything could still be a lie. There was the possibility that he was tucked away and hallucinating in some hospital for all he knew, because God knows his grip on reality hadn't always been great. Flipping the phone open again, finger over the send, he didn't know if he could take it if this was just some giant lie, or poison dream, or worse.

"All in," he whispered, hitting the button.

A voice sounded grumpy and half asleep and Dean held back some kind of terrible noise threatening to come out of him. "Bobby?"

"Dean? Boy, is that really you?"

"Yeah, yeah it's me."

"Hells bells, where are you?" Whatever sleepiness had existed was instantly gone. Bobby was laser alert and focused now. Old coot had probably been sleeping on a book.

"I got no idea. Some little dimension all my own, courtesy of Mikey."

"You ain't hurt?"

"Nope," Dean said, tipping his chair back a bit, squinting at the rapidly lightening sky. "I mean it's trippy, but it's not terrible. Got a little house, my very own table –"

"I have damn near worried myself to death and you're playing house with an archangel?"

Dean snorted, wiping his mouth with his hand. He could hear the shuffling of papers and he hated the thought that Bobby might have been looking for a way to find him. To get him back. And he hadn't had a way to contact anyone.

"Bobby –" he stopped, afraid to ask.

"Yeah boy?"

"How are you alive?"

"I dunno. One minute I was devil chow, the next, I was awake and alone in that place with that blasted car of yours. She's good, thought you'd want to know."

Michael, it had to be. It wouldn't surprise him if this was some kind of leverage against him, at least at first, but he kept that little nugget to himself.

"So, you and playing house with an archangel?" Bobby prompted.

"Yeah, not so much. He wants the magic word because of tactical advantages and I guess it won't wipe out the world."

"Well, at least that's better news then before. What happens to Sam in all this?"

"Sammy wouldn't –" he took a deep breath, "he wouldn't exist Bobby."

A soft sound, like some sort of terrible acceptance. "Was afraid it might be something like that."

"And you didn't say a word?"

"Son, that archangel is the oldest and biggest out of all of them. Been poofed into existence long before the rest of this mess. Can't image being killed or possessed by something killed by him would end well."

Dean drummed his fingers against the table because this was something that he should have thought of. Some part of him had figured that if Sam hadn't been able to fight through Luci's hold, he'd have him in heaven. That he'd be up there with Luci dead and despite the carnage, a dead Lucifer was still a good thing. But having no chance at all – that hadn't occurred to him. He wondered if it had to Sam.

"Thinking this isn't the end of the good news. What else does he want?"

He thought about playing dumb, but he figured he might only get this one call. "He wants my soul."

"To do what, decorate his mantel?"

"See and he laughed at me for that," Dean said, grateful that at least someone was on his page here. The sun was starting to peak over the mountains now, as he took a sip of coffee. "Dunno."

"Well, did you ask him, you idjit?"

He winced, feeling the scathing look the old man was giving him even from here.

"No."

"Think you might want to?"

"Not really."

"Dean." That tone was surfacing, the one that said he was in for a lecture. That one that always came with a certain face that said 'I say these things, hear it for once', and Dean leaned his head back. "When you going to wake up and realize the only one that doesn't think that soul is worth a damn is you?"

"Bobby –"

"Shut it, boy. You go off and sell it without thought. Constantly put yourself down for it, and while I respect your daddy as a hunter, I will always hate that he raised you to be believing this way. I've told you before and I'll keep telling ya until it's through that thick mound you call a skull. You ain't John, son. You're a better man than your daddy ever was."

He rubbed his nose with the cuff of his shirt, making himself stare out across the countryside.

"You want me to do this?"

"No!" Frustration crackled through as Bobby got himself under control. "Look, right now the world isn't currently burning to the ground, everything's stable. So ask him when he flutters back through. Figure out what he's doing. Jesus son, I'd box your ears for being so single mindedly stubborn if I could right now."

"Okay, Bobby," he said quietly. "Okay."

 **...**

* * *

Several days had gone by, or whatever actually qualified for days here. It was strange being able to just call Bobby whenever he wanted. Although the old man hadn't said anything, he probably annoyed the hell out of him sometimes, but it was okay. A part of his brain that trusted nothing wanted to protest all of this, that the old man couldn't be real. It was a trick to make him more compliant to the archangel, but that didn't sit true.

Especially given Bobby's reaction to his confession of teaching Michael Monopoly.

"Son," he had said, "you only play that game with people that already hate you with a fiery passion."

That was probably true.

Not that there was a lot to do. There were books, and as much as Sam would gloat, he did quietly geek out over the fact that Michael had put in an extensive history of weapons and monsters. Granted it was human knowledge, but Bobby would have loved to see some of this stuff.

Which was how he was occupying his time that afternoon when the archangel came back. He seemed more strained, something tight under that skin.

"Raphael?" Dean asked.

"He's impatient," Michael said, and Dean caught that tone held just underneath. The one that pretty much said Michael was about to lay a smack down on heavenly fields. "I cannot stay right now. I wanted to know how you were and if you were in need of anything."

"No, I mean everything like self-sustains. Fridge restocks itself. A little bored," he shrugged.

He decided not to even give mention of the slight disappointment that Michael was leaving again. A given, since he was the only corporal thing he had to talk to and annoy.

"Good."

"Uh, but can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, whatever you like. I will answer it if I can."

Which Dean mentally translated to 'if you need to actually know the answer'.

"What do you want my soul for, exactly?"

There was a look, like a shadow over the angel's face. Something that mirrored Cas' look that he got when Dean did something phenomenally stupid. The one that proclaimed 'you exist to vex me'.

"To be with me," Michael said slowly, looking him over. He was probably checking for brain damage. Dean was fairly certain he was slowly going insane, which was okay if the world hadn't died.

There seemed to be the unspoken words of 'how did you not know that' stubbornly hanging in the air.

"Oh," was all he got out.

"I will return soon. Only I know where you are and can reach you. You are safe here, do not worry about Raphael."

Then he was gone again, and Dean was finding he wished Michael would quit doing that. Which was all sorts of disturbing he didn't want to examine, as he tried to loose himself in his book, and failing miserably.


	6. Chapter 6

**...**

* * *

Small slants of light hit the inside of Baby's interior as he drove along the road to nowhere, looking at the land, as the day woke up around him. Michael still hadn't returned, and he wondered how bad things actually were in heaven. If they were running out of time for Dean to trust something that had, up to not long ago, not given a whole flying fuck about whether or not the earth still stood.

And then there was Sammy, and damn was he stupid for hoping for some last clutch miracle. Some last little sign of hope that his brother would be freed, but it wasn't looking likely. And Sam was suffering, not existing was probably better than eternal torment. Sam just wouldn't be aware and the earth would spin.

Even if it granted Sam peace he didn't know if he could ever do that.

He pulled off, the ground flat for a ways here before it opened up into a small little canyon. Walking to the edge, feet scuffing the arid dirt, he marveled at how the angel had pulled all of this out of nothing. Sounds of water, and when he was able to look over the steep sides, he could see a waterfall. On earth, it would be fed by some underground source. Here it was simly something that the archangel liked, replicated, and tuned to run forever.

He blinked at that thought, that all of this in some ways was a definition of Michael.

The small valley couldn't be more than thirty feet down and it looked lush down there. While lacking in the tree department, the plants looked huge, thriving in the long periods of shade cast from the canyon walls. It looked climbable and he was debating on where to start down when he heard wing beats.

"Would you like to see it?" Michael asked beside him, and Dean nodded expecting a flight. Instead the angel raised a hand and guided a slopping path from his feet to the little hidden spot.

"Handy."

There was only another nod, that face looking more worn, and he again wondered about the politics of heaven. Not that he wanted in on it, but just that it had to suck. Herding rabid cats at a free for all rodeo.

The path wasn't steep, and Michael walked in silence beside him. There was a smell here, some freshness, but it was cleaner than he had ever known. It made him think of dawn, as absurd as that sounded. Plants that resembled ferns but not quite, small flowers crawling along moss saturated ground, and some part of him didn't want to disturb it.

"It's alright."

Dean glanced over, the angel watching. Taking a breath, he walked towards the falls, the only real sound here outside of the soft mutterings of the water in its small stream, as it navigated the rocks. The air felt as though it was pure vibration as he reached out and let the water run over his fingers, cold, with a distinct feeling that it was calling him.

"What is this place?"

"A replica of a valley that no longer exists, one which was blessed," Michael replied beside him, still watching as Dean turned his hand over.

So many questions over that one, like where each little piece of this place had come from. Some part of him felt guilty for never having asked, that every molecule here had to have a story of why Michael picked it.

"There is a way to know me, if you would like."

Well, that was news. Dean turned his attention to the very still angel, who despite his blank face seemed to radiate apprehension and it wasn't good. This couldn't be good if Michael had misgivings about it because Dean was fairly certain this creature never second guessed anything. Lived with some wild, reckless knowledge that he was right when he dove into battle, commanded his armies, and Dean wished he could have had that at any point.

A hand was on his arm and he felt a pressure around them. Without thinking he reached out, and damn he shouldn't feel so safe right now, he shouldn't know what this was. Fingers in the air beside the angel, an electric feeling through him, as images of fires and suns sped through his mind.

"Is this some kind of weird angel sex? It's weird angel sex isn't it?" he got out, and saw that mouth curve up.

"It is a union. It will allow me to show you at least some things." Michael paused, looking at him. "Parts may be muddled or unclear because you have a soul and not grace. Just know that you are safe no matter what."

"I feel safe," Dean muttered as the angel's apprehension seemed to grow.

"It's not that."

He was about to ask what, but realized that no, it wasn't. It was an entirely different issue. One he knew he couldn't make any promises on.

"It's alright, child. I will help you no matter how you decide."

Something deep in him, beyond his bones, rattled with that same apprehension as Michael drew him closer, his hand still touching something he may never be able to see.

"Close your eyes and relax," the angel intoned. "Let it come over you."

The world fell away as he did.

 **...**

* * *

Everything felt like it wasn't attached to his body anymore even as he became aware that, yes, he did indeed have a body.

Tucked up against Michael, he felt that he was on his knees in the small hidden valley. An answering hum, and Dean knew he would always be able to hear that, that strange thrum, as it coursed beneath flesh. It sang, and he pushed closer to it without opening his eyes. His arms were loose and he slipped one hand high on Michael's right side, feeling the soft shirt there now. Without even understanding, he knew this was where the part of Michael was right now that Lucifer had slipped in his blade, and then whispered words of love.

This creature that had shattered and rebuilt himself so many times in order to find a way to exist in the reality he was cast into.

A soft sigh and Dean managed to open his eyes just to slam them back shut because that was jarring.

"Seeing your life makes me nauseous."

A breath and fingers slid up into his hair, warmth flowing through him to settle his nerves that seemed to still be engaged at full throttle.

"Better?" Michael asked.

He opened his eyes and things didn't seem to have that sharp, shiny, too bright edge to them.

Blinking some, he saw they were on the ground, his head still against the angel's shoulder, kneeling in the damp moss. The world was dimmer, but tilting his head he saw the sky was fading again, going into dusk. Apparently, seeing an angel's life took a long damn time.

"Yeah, thanks." Dean shifted a bit, and the angel loosened his hold so he could rock back and look at Michael who had his eyes closed and, well, had a blissed out expression of a man who had been fucked well. "Happy there, Sparky?"

"Yes."

"Are those new?" Dean squinted at the ground around them that seemed littered with tiny flowers that he was convinced hadn't been there before. Christ, he was cuddling on a carpet of flowers, a fact he was sharing with no one, ever.

"It was accidental."

"You make flowers bloom when happy? Are you a Disney princess? Should I be worried about a prince coming around to claim you?"

A soft, amused sigh, as a hand rubbed his back. "I did not have the heart to remove them after I was done with your memories –"

"Wait." Something close to fear was flowing freely now as he put a hand on the angel's chest, almost pushing himself away. Why hadn't this occurred to him? "Human life memories?"

"All of them."

No, not this. It was the one thing he had always been certain of. With Alastair and most of his helpers dead, there was no one left to tell. General ideas yes, specifics no, and he had wanted to keep it that way. Struggling, he tried to get himself out of those arms, not sure how anything that wasn't evil could touch him after seeing him get off on –

"Dean," Michael said, turning him so that his back was to the angel's chest, now sitting between long legs, caught up in arms that might as well have been stone.

"Power trip much?" He can't keep that bitter tone out of his voice, as Michael rested his chin on his shoulder.

"You believe you have no power over me."

"Well, can't say I can hold you down so, yeah, going with not a lot of say."

"Do you trust me?"

There was an unspoken 'to not hurt you, never again _you'_ in there and all he could do was say a soft yes because, goddamn it all to hell, he did. Completely after this, even if made him a bitch to heaven he couldn't –

"Dean."

That voice brought him back as the angel picked up his left arm, running his fingers over it. Michael pressed his lips to the pulse point on his wrist covered by that always too thin skin that liked to tear, before the angel, in one swift move, opened it up all the way to the elbow.

Dean gasped, struggling for a second before he realized there was no pain, no blood, just the strange sensation of air on the things that really should be inside. Muscles and veins, all his inner parts were out in the open. He was not seeing where this was going outside of a really freaky biology lesson as to why he was inferior.

Releasing his arm with one hand, Michael manifested a knife and he sucked in more air, wondering if he was going to be splayed out so that he could see everything working in there.

There were just some things a man didn't need to know.

"Here," Michael said, with something like fondness and pressed the hilt of the knife into Dean's right hand. Then the archangel loosened his grip, pushing up his own left sleeve, and Dean realized what he was supposed to be doing.

 _Maybe this is some sort of angel foreplay,_ he thought, as he made the incision with a quick, practiced hand. A wave of Michael's right hand pushed it wider, the inner working falling open to the eye. Inside, there was a small faint glow, like Michael lit up everything from the inside out. It whispered, like a thousand voices if he listened.

He tried not to listen.

"In these bodies, we have our weaknesses. Your blood can be drained, my essence banished. You pulled apart while, with holy fire, I can be burned from the inside out. I can put that knife through your heart and end you," Michael said, pausing as he grasped Dean's wrist of the hand that still held the knife. "You could do the same to me, beloved, if you saw what it truly is you hold."

The blade lengthened and sharpened with a hot glow that coursed through him, crafting itself into a blade like Cas used to have except longer, the feeling of fire ever-present. He held it tightly, terrified if he let go that somehow, something could go wrong. The hand slide off his wrist as he watched the light of heaven shimmer through what wasn't metal, and he swallowed.

"Mike –" He couldn't think of something to say, his mouth snapping shut.

"What I want you to understand," the angel continued, voice seeped in the power of universes, "is what is being offered. You were always meant to weld my sword with me."

Arm wrapped around his chest, not restrictive, as the angel watched Dean move his wrist, the fire that was Michael in his hand without pain. As if it was some sort of challenge, he extended his arm and rotated his wrist so its point was facing them, just touching the top of his shoulder where Michael was pressed against him and vulnerable.

That arm around him tightened, but the angel made no move to stop him.

"I became loyalty without compassion," Michael whispered. "Obedience without hope. I was obsession forged from rage with only my final destiny before me."

"You would let me do this."

"I have broken Father's commandments."

Silence was draped across this tiny nook of paradise lost, he couldn't even hear the water, as the flowers, with faces turned up to heaven, waited for his decision. This creature that had ruled with fear and rage, who had allowed so much to happen, whose head was pressed against his. Michael's unneeded breaths against his cheek.

Finally he let his wrist relax, turning the point away, arm falling to his side. Michael's hand joined his own on the hilt.

"We will do what is right and good," came the soft words, "because it is right and good. You have reminded me of what I was created to be."

"Yeah, well, you have one hell of a sales pitch."

"Hmm," was the only response as Michael raised both of their hands, letting the short sword turn before them in the growing night. "It is an extension of myself."

"I can't see you." A slight tinge of regret because that apparently was a design thing with God despite Him wanting His children to get along.

"Someday you might be able to."

"How terrifying are you? I mean, I got hazy images from your memory stuff, though it was like looking through eighteen inches of gauze. And I'm pretty sure you didn't hang out in front of any heavenly mirrors. Zach boasted that he had like four faces and all these wings while he was doing obscene things with my heaven."

A thumb ran across his knuckles as Michael moved the sword.

"I was unhappy over that."

Dean knew he never wanted to ever see this creature displeased in the way good old Zachy had, just by that low tone alone.

"He was tiny compared to me, though I rarely appear in my full form, even among my siblings," Michael said.

"Uh huh. See, not helpful for size comparison."

A part of him was utterly fascinated how something that huge got all itty bitty and shoved into a human. Probably something close to trying to shove a basketball into a wine bottle.

"I fold. Albeit, I fold a great deal, but I am light."

"I'm going to just stop trying to figure it out," he said, not wanting to think how something like that would feel pressed and bound in his own meatsuit. It wasn't something he wanted to experience first-hand, but he knew it was coming all the same.

Michael's head was beside his, chin still on his shoulder, as the night took hold all around. Dean wished that what was in front of them was only this valley.

"We must end their suffering and protect the world."

"I don't – can't do it if it's paradise or whatever you want to bring."

Not that he was convinced he could do it at all no matter the conditions.

"It is Father's creation; it should be left as it is."

Dean watched them turn the sword, wanting to just stay here. If Michael gave him a good brain enema, he was certain he could be happy here.

"We must do what is right," Michael told him.

"It may be right, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept."

The heat of Michael closer, arm around him tighter, and Dean reminded himself it was still better than Sam being tortured till the universe collapsed. Maybe longer.

It wasn't quite enough to get that crushing pain around his heart to loosen.


	7. Chapter 7

**...**

* * *

After whatever the hell had happened between them, Michael had gone MIA, and there was too much nervous energy in him to be wrestled down with just a beer here and there. Even taking to the road, knowing that it lead nowhere, seemed to make the restlessness grow to a heightened level. Where it felt that every sense was sharpened past what was good for his mental state.

Even when he did call Bobby, he couldn't think of any way to explain how damn stupid he had been to let something like that happen. There really wasn't a good way to admit he had taken a dip in Michael's grace. That some hours he was afraid there was some left on him, marching him closer and closer to the moment he said yes. Dean was already up to his ears in problems without that.

Thankfully, Bobby hadn't pressed outside of getting confirmation that, no, Michael hadn't done unspeakable angel touching to his person. The only news he got from home was that nothing had been found on the 'free Sam while ditching Satan' front.

He was sitting on the – his – front porch, looking out over the landscape in the late afternoon sun. Even if it was created instead of real, it felt good enough that he had stripped down to his tee and pair of jeans. He could make out some of the shifts in the landscape now that he knew what they were, the inspiration from an archangel's memories.

A movement of air and Michael was beside him, sitting on the stair. Which raised all sorts of questions about why they liked to appear from behind instead of just where ever, not that he wanted an answer. It was probably heaven's version of an eons long practical joke.

"Come to check up on me?"

"I came to make sure you hadn't wandered off, or were trying something foolish."

"Me, foolish?" he asked, pointing at himself, and trying for a grin but feeling it fail before it took hold. "What makes you say that?"

Michael, to his credit, had fine lines by his mouth that spoke as to how disbelieving he was to that statement.

"I also came to see if you had given any thought to what we talked about before."

He shook his head, knowing the angel would get it. It was all he could do to not think about it every second of each day that crawled by here. Like somehow, if he managed to not think on it, all of it would blow away, that it wouldn't have to be a decision he would need to make. Or that he would somehow have better choices to choose from.

"Dean, there is no way to separate Sam from my brother without letting Lucifer go free."

The gentle tone behind those words did little to make it any easier to digest.

"Man, I can't do what you want me to do."

"Is that fair to Sam?" Michael asked him, and he looked over, seeing the angel gazing out across the yard.

"Not an option."

"I could extend your life, let you live until you were sure that all options were exhausted. But in that time, Dean, your brother would undergo centuries of torment. There is no escape, no reprieve, no time away from the destruction of his soul. No chance to flee, to claw out of hell as a demon could. Century after century –"

"Stop."

" – of pure, unending pain."

"Please, stop," he whispered, looking down at his lap.

Michael mercifully shut up for a moment, as Dean curled his fingers against his jeans, trying to keep his head above water.

"Right before you vomited in my tulips," Michael started as Dean winced, "I was about to tell you that I thought it was much harder for you."

Dean scoffed at that, tried to swallow down bitter words.

"I've had eons to make peace with Lucifer's path and his inevitable end." Michael continued. "You though, you have had a handful of months to even begin to process what you must do."

"Don't act like you don't give a damn about him."

"That is true," Michael allowed, voice soft. "But that does not change what he is, what he would do, has already proven he would do, if allowed to keep living. No matter Sam's crimes, even murderers have a chance at redemption. Yet he is denied it while you refuse to accept it."

Clearing his throat, wanting to really think about things other than this, Dean steered the conversation in what he hoped was a different direction. "Still not all that clear on what you want my soul for."

"Do you remember when I told you that you mistook duty for love when you spoke about my brothers?" Michael asked, and he nodded in response. "We may use the word brother in your language, but it means something vastly different. What I want from you is something that I have not been given by any of my so called brothers for a very long time."

"And that is?"

"Must you be so stubborn?"

He slipped a fingernail under the label on his bottle, not looking up, the sweat on the glass helping to remove it smoothly. The liquid, what little remained, sloshed around inside, as he found himself almost distracted by watching it dash against the sides.

"I want to be done," Michael said, his voice low and quiet. "That all of this that has hung over me for so long be finished and that Lucifer no longer be a threat to creation again. As long as the key exists, there will always be those, including my brothers, who will long to reassemble it to free him. I have no wish to restart this or any war. What I want is to take you home and simply watch creation with you until either Father returns, or time unravels. I want to finish what I was commanded to do, to fight this last battle, and finally rest."

He didn't know what to say to any of that, because it sounded simple and impossible and soul crushing all at once. Another bout of nervous energy was rushing through him, making him jiggle his leg. It was always so quiet here, the absence of so many background noises that he had taken for granted so many times, now caused a glaring hole in his existence.

"You and I must do what is right and good for both of them, and for the rest of creation," Michael said, and Dean knew the angel was looking at him now. "You have felt what I am offering you. Now, you have to decide what you want, Dean. I will return to you soon."

Michael was gone. He rubbed his hand across his face and tried to clear the choking dryness from his throat.

 **...**

* * *

Dawn was pushing back the night once again, her fingers lacing through the black ink of the sky with strains of yellow and pink. Baby's hood was cold from sitting here neglected all night. It was slightly damp with dew, the moisture sinking into his jeans. Michael was beside him as they both leaned up against the hood.

"It can't – it has to stay as is. None of that Paradise or what the hell ever you planned to do. The humans left alone."

"I can promise you that."

Dean drummed his fingers against the curve of the hood, the familiar metal not a comfort in these final hours. "I mean, if you want to lay some pain on the monsters here and there, I'd guess that would be okay."

He cleared his throat, unsure what the etiquette was on asking archangels how trustworthy they were.

"Have I done anything that would make you think I would not keep my word, Dean?"

"Well." He rubbed the back of his head. "I mean, outside of the kidnapping and holding me against my will. Twice. Oh and not telling me the damn truth before Sammy wandered off to pop the lock."

His tone was harsher than he intended and he tried to dial it back a notch as Michael grew stiffer than his normal stick-up-his-ass mode.

"You know why I allowed it now. I am willing to apologize for misleading you."

"Willing to? Is that like an IOU from heaven, good for one archangel 'sorry for screwing you over' before the sun explodes? Do I only get one, or can I collect a set before turning them in?" He was definitely ready to point out in various, detailed ways how that was not going to fly when he saw Michael's jaw tighten.

"I apologize for not treating you as you should have been treated as my true vessel."

It looked like just that was about to break Michael and Dean wondered when the last time he had ever said sorry to anything was. A slow head turn, Michael's eyes dark in the morning blooming up all around him, was enough of an indicator not to ask. This was probably the best he was going to get.

"There is something I would like you to promise me."

"Oh?" Dean raised an eyebrow, he really did, because angels asking for stuff that wasn't 'hey, can I wear you', was still new. "And that would be?"

"I want you to return to earth after this and live your life. It is what your Sam asked of you and what you promised him."

Dean shook his head because he didn't feel he was going to be functional after this. That once that blade cut down his brother, even with all the damage to Sam's soul, he was going to be a gibbering mess. In the end, it was still him holding sword as Michael swung it.

"I can help you through your dreams, but I felt that you would want a chance to honor his last wishes."

Air wasn't cooperating this morning, as he tried to breath, refusing to fill up his lungs with any great proficiency, and he hated this. Hated that he still wasn't ready to go even if it was the only real option left, the one that would end suffering, stabilize the world. It still meant no more Sam, ever, something he had sworn to not let happen.

There were times he truly hated his dad as Michael put a hand to his shoulder, fingers flexing against his shirt.

"When I take possession, I will not act until you are acclimated. I may have to push you briefly under when the time comes because, for the sake of the world, I cannot afford hesitation. Do you understand?"

He nodded, mouth not working, as the angel kept making those small finger movements against him. It was never cold here, but he shivered all the same. In the end, he was still going to watch Sam die, which was what he had originally set off to do when he went to Stull. He'd never have the chance to tell his brother that it was okay. That Sam had done good.

"The cruelty is to leave him in the dark with my brother. I have prayed that Father finds mercy for him."

"And Luci?" He couldn't stop himself from asking, because apparently there was still one angel out there that loved Satan as much as hated him.

Michael closed his eyes.

"My brother was given multiple chances at salvation, far more than any other being in existence, and he turned his back to every one of them. He is not your problem."

 _But all the damage he leaves behind, is,_ Dean silently added and Michael's eyes opened just a little.

"I know you will return home to me." Michael moved a couple steps to stand in front of him, lifting his chin up with his hand. "As you know my true intentions, do you, Dean Winchester, agree to be my vessel?"

"Yes."

 **...**

* * *

It was the most out there feeling in the world, he thought, as he came to himself inside his own body. It felt like being balanced on pricks of light. That was the closest he could come to it, like Michael was just barely able to hold on, and he wondered why that was. If the archangel could barely stand touching him.

"I am unused to having a conscious soul with me," Michael said, which was something Dean just didn't want to address right now.

He could see, the light sweeping in, and immediately wanted to blink, but he wasn't in charge of the wires anymore. The world was washed out until Michael, finally, mercifully blinked a few times for them so he could catch up on the scenery.

Which of course was when his heart, if he had still been in possession of it, plummeted.

Stull, they were back in Stull.

Something solid was in their shared fingers, Michael flexing against it over and over, and Dean realized what it was. The key made from the rings. That damn key, and Dean couldn't do this. He couldn't watch, and he was ashamed at what was about to happen. Sam deserved him to witness this, to know that his suffering was over and that his brother was with him till the end.

"Everything will be alright."

Hearing his own voice address him, somehow much more regal, was disconcerting. Michael shifted, looking up into the sky that was over cast, and Dean took in bare trees. Late fall or winter then. They had been together in his little slice of weirdness for a while then. It didn't help that everything felt dead around them, far more so than any damn boneyard had any right to feel. There was wind moving those barren branches, swinging them back and forth, invoking the image of a noose.

A warm curl, something hot, wrapped around his soul, and Dean was reaching for it before remembering that he had nothing to reach with. It answered though, the sensation becoming stronger, and if Dean had a face he would bury it in that heat. What they had to do, he didn't know if they were coming out on the other side with so much of everything that lay shattered and broken.

' _Mike?'_

"Everything is fine. I did not expect this."

There was no answer as to what the archangel did not expect, and Dean tried several times. He was sure of it. Hours seemed to pass in the space of a few minutes, the sky darkening above them, and he wanted to point out that night was usually a poor time to start battles. Especially ones they wanted over quickly.

Some distant, latent fear in him thought that Michael had miscalculated, or worse, lied about this being fast. Yet that didn't sit right with him. No, this was something else and he had no idea what it was. So he did what he could do, which was cling as much as a disembodied thing could cling to that warmth all around him. He hoped a little might translate over to whatever it was he was trying to get across.

He wasn't sure what that was anymore.

"Oh," the angel breathed, shutting their shared eyes. Sharp edges against his hand, he could feel that, and knew Michael was clutching the key. In fact, it felt they were holding onto the forsaken thing so tight that the individual settings were grinding into their skin.

A small sensation of something wet in that hand confirmed it. And when had he started thinking of his body as theirs? Not that it wasn't right, it was.

Dean felt it, or rather them, open up, large and looming, and he realized numbly that these were Michael's wings. That heat was coiling tight against him, and in the darkness caused by their closed eyes, he tried to image them. He couldn't help but think of the Warrior of Heaven as made of flames, with massive wings crafted from it, billowing out behind them, stretching across fields.

"You flatter me," the angel said, before they were moving.

That sickening, jolting sensation that always came with angel airlines was in him, except, so, so much worse this time. Dean was grateful that he couldn't see that kind of flight, and grateful he wasn't in control of his stomach. He was certain what little was in it would be puked back up.

Michael kept them in the darkness while he settled before opening their eyes. A shore stretched out around them, the ocean restless and lashing out against the dark shadows of rocks barely visible in the weak moonlight.

The words asking what was going on died in him as Michael turned their head and Dean saw who they were next to. It was a man but not a man, dressed all in black, and almost skeletal, looking out over that expanse. Wind howled by him, not touching a hair on this being's head, cheeks sunken in. Even though he couldn't see the horseman's hands, he knew they rested on top of a gold tipped cane.

"Michael. I have never had the pleasure of your asking me for anything."

Dean felt their chin dip out of respect, since it was probably only him in sheer terror at this point.

"I have come for a deal."

"And what is so important that you would pause your long awaited battle?"

"I wish for the body and soul of Sam Winchester. That is within your power, is it not?"

Death's lip curled up into a small snarl, but Dean was too busy trying to hang on. If he had been in charge of the strings, he was sure he would have collapsed, stopped fucking breathing at those words.

"And if the damage is too great?"

"Then his soul is to be returned to heaven."

"What do you offer me in return for such a grand gesture?"

Their hand moved, the one that had held the key, now only held one ring, one who's stone sparkled white and shone against the night as it was held up. Death looked at them quietly, and Dean knew he could be seen. He fought back the urge to try to shirk away, the idea that Michael was holding him tighter in these few seconds bright and clear in his thoughts.

"You know I will never give it up again."

"Obviously."

Dean knew, he finally figured out what was being offered.

 _'You don't -,'_ he started, realizing with horror how bad that sounded because he desperately wanted Sam out of hell. Like last year wasn't soon enough.

"I have come to realize that some of His commands weren't as important as others." Michael's voice floated out over that cold shore as Death held out his hand. The ring was dropped into it. Dean thought he had fallen into some kind of abyss. Some terrible prank that he would wake up from, as those fingers curled up to claim it.

A cold dread flooded him that God might make an appearance and strike down Michael for refusing the whole destiny shindig.

"I will place a wall. It will be your responsibility to make sure it is maintained."

"Of course," Michael answered, their head bowing. "Thank you."

They were alone when they raised their head back up, and Dean had so many questions. Starting with 'what the fuck' and getting more crazed from there.

"Lucifer made his choices with full knowledge. Perhaps, with this borrowed time, I can learn to forgive him even if he can never return the same. I couldn't –" Michael stopped and Dean tried to piece together just what had happened.

 _'Kind of think there's more here, Mike. I mean, this never came up as a damn option. And I'm working up to being pissed over that, by the way._ '

"I thought there were no other choices. I thought –" the angel stopped and ducked his head. A feeling of a smile, they were smiling. "I did not know you would love me like this."

Dean sputtered, inside his body, because apparently that was a thing now. He really wished he could look away, or run off down the shore, but sadly he was planted here in his flesh. There wasn't a way to deny it, he was aware enough of that. That he was laid out in here, basically naked, with an angel fondling him who was now currently laughing. Really laughing.

Awesome.

"Relax. There is no reason to be ashamed."

' _So not the point.'_

He couldn't help but be morose because angel-love, yeah, tough to explain. Not to bring up that they had just saved the world by the power of love, and if Sam was coming back, well, he was never hearing the end of this.

That terrible thought of how close they came to not having a Sam to come back to surfaced like a wound.

"Dean." Michael made their shared voice gentle. "He will not hate you. He will understand that you longed to end his suffering and will not remember hell."

Dean was certain if he had control of his head he would be shaking it.

' _I left him down there because I couldn't get my shit together and then -'_

"Which is what you promised," Michael said, cutting him off. "I've seen your memories; I have felt your own pain over what you've done, as you know mine."

' _Please',_ he begged, not wanting to think of the grooves worn into him from that knife. The grace of an archangel pressed closer around him, filling in the cracks he was littered with.

"You are loved," the angel said, firmly, as though that would help him accept it faster. "I am sorry that it took so long for me to truly understand what Father wanted."

Waves continued to crash against the shore, picking up in stamina, and Dean distantly wondered if they were in the path of a hurricane as he got himself under control. Not that he should be worried since he was riding around with heaven's tank here.

' _So what now, Patton?'_

"I will release you and you will go live your life with your brother. I must return to heaven and rein in Raphael. He will be disappointed with what I have chosen."

' _Yeah, that one is, um, intense,'_ Dean supplied, since that was the nicest way he could put it.

"Things are different slightly then when we left earth," Michael continued, sensing that maybe he couldn't really process everything that was happening right now, or ever, really. "Know that I will always hear you and I want you to live. I know that you will return home to me."

' _Mike…'_

He couldn't finish, find a voice for that stupid fear of being empty all over again, because he wasn't like that. He wanted to swear he wasn't like that. Everything that was him wanted to say that he shouldn't be trusted with any of this, that all he did was fuck things up. That Michael, well, he shouldn't be allowed to touch this being, no matter how tarnished they both were.

"I would like to heal your soul before I leave you."

All that he was, wanted to protest having it touched anymore. The fire was already around him, in him, and he opened up to it, joining with all that had ever consisted of Michael as it flooded through him.

 **...**

* * *

"Dean?"

Sam's puppy eyes and floppy hair were above him, and he groaned, feeling like something had been brutally carved out of him. Then remembered that that was probably the archangel he had been housing, as he tried to slide a leg up, boots and feet that he had control over suddenly being uncooperative. A hand on his back as he wrenched himself to sitting, and he saw they were back in Stull. Fitting, he decided, inconvenient but fitting.

Well, until he saw the edges of what appeared to be a trench coat. The word 'Cas' was cut off as Sam was shaking him, staring like something truly awful had happened. That Dean done fucked up again.

He wanted to protest that not everything he did was wrong.

"Sam," Castiel was saying, trying to get his brother to stop rattling him around. "Michael –"

"Dean, what did you do?"

It was a plea, not wanting to believe that something could be okay.

"Alright," he said, getting himself to standing, glad he only swayed a little. "Look, one, my ass hurts from laying on the damn ground. Two, I'm actually hungry for the first time in forever. And three, Sam, everything is fine. I promise, for once its good."

Sam was wrapped around him then, crying, because Sam was always meant to be a girl. Dean patiently held him because he refused to acknowledge the growing wetness in his eyes. Cas, however the hell the industrious bastard had gotten back, was staring up into the dawn filled sky, with something like a faint smile.

 _Thank you_ , he thought to the angel he knew was listening, feeling that eggs, bacon, and hash browns were definitely next on his agenda.


End file.
